20: The Goal of the “L’Escaut”

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INSPECTOR French had gone to bed in the tiny but comfortable stateroom which had been put at his disposal by the officers of the Admiralty boat while that redoubtable vessel was slipping easily and on an even keel through the calm waters of the Straits of Dover. He awoke next morning to find her plunging and rolling and staggering through what, in comparison with his previous experiences of the sea, appeared to be a frightful storm. To his surprise, however, he did not feel any bad effects from the motion, and presently he arose, and having with extreme care performed the ticklish operation of shaving, dressed and climbed with the aid of railings and handles to the companionway, and so to the deck.

The sight which met his eyes on emerging made him hold his breath, as he clung to the rail at the companion door. It was a wonderful morning, clear and bright and fresh and invigorating. The sun shone down from a cloudless sky on to a dark sapphire sea of incredible purity, flecked over with foaming patches of dazzling white. As far as the eye could reach in every direction out to the hard sharp line of the horizon, great waves rolled relentlessly onward, wavelets dancing and churning and foaming on their slow-moving flanks. The wind caught French and, as if it were a solid, held him pinned against the deckhouse. He stood watching the bluff bows of the boat rise in the air, then crash back into the sea, throwing out a smother of water and foam some of which would seep over the fo’c’sle, and after swirling through the forward deck hamper, disappear through the scuppers amidships.

For some moments he watched, then moving round the deckhouse, he glanced up and saw Cheyne and Price beckoning to him from the bridge, where they had joined the officer of the watch.

“Some morning this, Inspector,” Price cried, as he joined them in the lee of the weather canvas. “This will blow the London cobwebs out of our minds.”

He was evidently keenly enjoying himself, and even Cheyne’s anxious face showed appreciation of his surroundings. And soon French himself, having realized that they were not necessarily going to the bottom in a hurricane, but merely running down Channel in a fresh southwesterly breeze, began to feel the thrill of the sea, and to believe that the end of his quest was going to develop into a novel and delightful holiday trip.

The same weather held all that day and the next, but on the third the wind fell, and the sea gradually calmed down to a slow, easy swell. The sun grew hotter, and basking in it in the lee of the deckhouse became a delight. Little was said about the object of the expedition. French and Price were content to enjoy the present, and Cheyne managed to keep his anxieties to himself. The ship’s officers were a jolly crowd, immensely excited by their quest, and conducting themselves as the kindly hosts of welcome guests.

On the fourth day it grew still warmer, indeed out of the breeze made by the ship’s motion it was unpleasantly hot. French liked to get away forward, where it was cooler, and leaned by the hour over the bows, watching the sharp stem cut through the water and roll back in its frothing wave on either side. Dolphins were now to be seen swimming in the clear water, and two hung at the bows, one on each side, apparently motionless for long periods, until suddenly they would dart ahead, spiral round one another and then return to their places.

That fourth evening the captain joined his passengers as the trio were smoking on deck.

“If we carry on like this,” he remarked, “we should reach the position about four A.M. But those beggars may be taking a risk and not showing a light, so I propose to slow down from now on, in order not to arrive till daylight. Come on deck about six. If they’re here we should raise them between then and seven.”

French, waking early next morning, could not control his excitement and remain in his berth until the allotted time. He rose at five, and went on deck with the somewhat shamefaced feeling that he was acting as a small boy, who on Christmas morning must needs get up on waking to investigate the possibilities of stockings. But he need not have feared ridicule from his companions. Both Cheyne and Price were already on the bridge, and the skipper stood with his telescope glued to his eye as he searched the horizon ahead. All three were evidently thrilled by the approaching finale, and a slight incoherence was discernible in their somewhat scrappy conversation.

The morning was calm and very clear. Once again the sky was cloudless, and the soft southwesterly wind barely ruffled the surface of the long flat swells. It was a pleasure to be alive, and it seemed impossible to associate crime and violence with the expedition. But beneath their smiles all concerned felt it might easily develop into a grim enough business. And that side of it became more apparent when at the captain’s order the covers of the six-pounders mounted fore and aft were removed, and the weapons were prepared for action by their crews.

The hands of French’s watch had just reached the quarter hour after six, when Captain Amery, who had once again been sweeping the horizon with his telescope, said quietly: “There she is.” He handed the glass to French. “See there, about three points on the starboard bow.”

French, with some difficulty steadying the tube, saw very faint and far off what looked like the upper part of a steamer’s deck, with a funnel, and two masts like threads of the finest gossamer. “She’s still hull down,” the captain explained. “You’ll see her better in a few minutes. We should be up with her in three-quarters of an hour.”

In order to leave them free later on, it was decided to have breakfast at once, and by the time the hasty meal had been disposed of the stranger was clearly visible to the naked eye. She lay heading westward, as though anchored in the swing of the tide, and her fires appeared to be either out or banked, as no smoke was visible at her funnel. The glass revealed a flag at her forepeak, but she was still too far off to make out its colouring.

Now that the dramatic climax was approaching, the minds of the actors in the play became charged with a very real anxiety. Captain Amery, under almost any circumstances, would have to deal with a very ticklish situation. He had to get the gold, if it was salvable, and the fact that they were not in British waters would be a complication if the Belgian had already recovered it. French had to ascertain if his quarry were on board, and if so, see that they did not escape him---also a difficult job outside the three-mile limit. For Price a fortune hung in the balance---not of course all the gold that might be found, but the proportion allowed him by law; while for Cheyne there remained something more important than the capture of a criminal or the acquisition of a fortune---for Cheyne the question of Joan Merrill’s life was at stake. Their several anxieties were reflected on the faces of the men, as they stood in silence, watching the rapidly growing vessel.

Presently an exclamation came from Captain Amery.

“By Jove!” he said, “this is a rum business. I can see that flag now, and it’s our red ensign. What’s a Belgian boat doing with a British flag? And what’s more, it’s jack down---a flag of distress. What do you think of that?” He looked at the others with a puzzled expression, then went on: “I suppose they’re not armed? You don’t know, Inspector, do you? If they were armed it would be a likely enough ruse to get us close by, so as to make sure of hitting us in a vital place.”

French shook his head. He had heard nothing about arms, though for all he knew to the contrary the L’Escaut might carry a gun.

“I don’t see one,” the captain continued, “but then if they have one they’d keep it hidden. But I don’t like there being no signs of life aboard her. There’s no smoke anywhere, either from her boilers or her galley. There’s no one on the bridge, and I’ve not seen a movement on deck. It doesn’t look well: in fact it looks as if they were lying low and waiting for us.”

They were now within a mile of the stranger, and her details were clear even to the naked eye.

“It’s the L’Escaut anyway,” Captain Amery went on. “I can see the name on her bows. But I confess I don’t like that flag and that silence. I think I’ll see if I can wake her up.”

He put his hand on the foghorn halliard and blew a number of resounding blasts. For a few seconds nothing happened, then suddenly two figures appeared at the deckhouse door, and after a moment’s pause, rushed up on the bridge and began waving furiously. As they passed up the bridge ladder they came from behind the shelter of a boat and their silhouettes became visible against the sky. They were both women!

A strangled cry burst from Cheyne as he snatched the captain’s telescope and gazed at them, then with a shout of “It’s she! It’s she!” he leaped to the end of the bridge and began waving his hat frantically.

At this moment two other figures appeared on the fo’c’sle and, apparently moving to the vessel’s side, stood watching the newcomers. Amery rang his engines down to half speed and, slightly porting his helm, headed for some distance astern of the other. Then starboarding, he swung round, and bringing up parallel to her and some couple of hundred yards away, he dropped anchor.

Without loss of a moment a boat was lowered, and French, Cheyne, Price, the first officer, and a half dozen men, all armed with service revolvers, tumbled in. Giving way lustily, they pulled for the Belgian.

It was by this time possible to distinguish the features of the women, and French was not surprised to learn they were Joan Merrill and Susan Dangle. Evidently they recognized Cheyne, who kept waving furiously as if he found the movement necessary to relieve his overwrought feelings. The two figures forward were those of men, and these stood watching the boat, though without exhibiting any of the transports of delight of their fellow shipmates on the bridge.

As they drew closer Joan made signs to them to go round to the other side of the ship, and dropping round her stern they saw a ladder rigged. In a few seconds they were alongside, and Cheyne, leaping out before the others, rushed up the steps and reached the deck.

French, anxious to learn the state of affairs and seeing nothing was to be got from Joan, turned expectantly to Susan Dangle. What could these unexpected developments mean? Was Susan, the enemy, now a friend? Where were the others? Were the ship’s company friends or foes? Could he ask her questions which might incriminate her without giving her a formal warning?

But his curiosity would brook no delay.

“I am Inspector French of Scotland Yard,” he announced, while Price and the first officer stood round expectantly. “You are Miss Susan Dangle. Where are the other members of this expedition?”

The girl wrung her hands, and he noticed how terribly pale and drawn was her face and what horror shone in her eyes.

“Oh!” she cried, with a gesture as if to shut out the sight of some hideous dream. “Oh, it’s been awful! I can’t speak of it. They’re dead! My brother James, Charles Sime, Mr. Merkel, most of the crew, dead---all dead! Mr. Blessington wounded---probably dying! They got fighting over the gold!” She began suddenly to laugh, a terrible high cackling laugh, that made her hearers shiver, and attracted the attention even of Joan and Cheyne.

French stepped quickly forward and seized her arm.

“There now, Miss Dangle,” he said kindly but firmly. “Stop that and pull yourself together. Your terrible experiences are over now and you’re in the hands of friends. But you mustn’t give way like this. Make an effort, and you’ll be better directly.” He led her to a hatchway and made her sit down, while he continued soothing her as one would a fractious child.

But so great was the agitation of both girls that it was quite a considerable time before the tragic tale of the L’Escaut’s expedition became fully unfolded. And when at last it was told it proved still but one more illustration of the old truth that the qualities of greed and envy and selfishness have that seed of decay within themselves which leads their unhappy victims to overreach themselves, and instead of gaining what they seek, to lose their all. Shorn of incoherent phrases and irrelevant details the story was this.

On the 24th of May the L’Escaut had left Antwerp with twenty-eight souls aboard. Aft there were Joan, Susan, Blessington, Sime, Dangle, and Merkel, with the captain, first officer, and engineer---nine persons, while forward were three divers, six assistants, a cook, a steward, four seamen, and four engine-room staff, or nineteen altogether. Once clear of the Scheldt Joan’s treatment had changed. Her food was no longer drugged, and when in a few days she got over the effects of the doses she had received, she found her jailers polite and friendly and anxious to minimize the inconvenience and anxiety she was suffering. They told her they did not wish her evil, and were taking her with them simply to prevent information as to themselves or their affairs leaking out through her. This, of course, she did not believe, since she did not possess sufficient information about them to enable her to interfere with their plans. But later their real motive dawned on her. Nothing, however, had occurred to which she could take exception, and had it not been for her fears as to her own fate and her anxieties as to Cheyne’s, the voyage would have been pleasant enough.

The L’Escaut was a fast boat, and four days had brought them to the spot referred to in the cipher. After three days’ search they found the wreck, and all three divers had at once gone down. A week was spent in making an examination of the vessel, at the end of which time they had located the gold. It was in her stern, low down and not far from her port side. The divers recommended blowing her plates off at this spot, and ten days more sufficed for this. Through the hole thus made the divers were able to draw in tackle lowered from the L’Escaut, and the ingots of gold were slung to cradles and drawn up with really wonderful ease and speed. They had, moreover, been favoured with a peculiarly fine stretch of weather, work having to be suspended on only eight days of the thirty-seven they were there.

On reaching the wreck in the first instance the captain had mustered his crew aft and had informed them---what he could no longer keep secret---that they were out for gold, and that if they found it in the quantities they hoped, every man on board would receive at the end of the trip a gift of £1,000 in addition to his pay. The men at first seemed more than satisfied, but as ingot after ingot was recovered the generosity of the offer shrank in their estimation. Four days before the appearance of French’s party the divers had reported that another day would complete the work, and then appeared the first hint that all was not well. On that last evening before the completion of the diving the men came forward in a body and asked to see the captain. They explained that they had been reckoning up the value of the gold, and they weren’t having £1,000 apiece: they wanted an even divide all round. The captain argued with them civilly enough at first---told them that they couldn’t get the metal ashore and turned into money in secret, that the port officers or coastguards wherever it was unloaded would be bound to learn what they were doing and that then the government would claim an enormous percentage of the whole, so that the £1,000 per man was an extremely liberal gift. The men declared that they would look after the unloading, and that they were going to have what they wanted. Hot words passed, and then the captain drew a revolver and said that he was captain there, and that what he said would go. Susan was watching the scene from the quarterdeck behind, but she could not be quite sure of what followed. One of the crew pressed forward and the captain raised his revolver. She did not think he meant to fire, but another of the men either genuinely or purposely misunderstood his action. He raised his hand, a shot rang out, and the captain fell dead. The mutineers were evidently terribly upset by a murder which they had apparently never intended, and had Blessington and Sime acted intelligently, the trouble might have gone no further. But at that moment these two worthies, who must have been in the chart-house all the time, began firing through the windows at the men. A regular pitched battle ensued, in which Sime and five of the crew were hit, three of the latter being killed. It was then war to the knife between those who berthed forward and those who berthed aft. All that night sporadic shots rang out at intervals, but at daybreak on the following day matters came to a head. The crew with considerable generalship made a feint on the fo’c’sle with some of their number while the remainder swarmed aft below decks. The defenders, taken in the rear, were shot down, and the mutineers were masters of the ship.

All that next day Joan and Susan, terror-stricken, clung to each other in the latter’s cabin. The men were reasonably civil: told them they might get themselves food, and let them alone. But that night a further terrible quarrel burst out between, as they learned afterwards, those who wished to murder the girls and go off with the treasure and those who feared murder more than the loss of the gold. Once again there were the reports of shots and the groans of wounded men. The fusillade went on at intervals all night, until next morning one of the divers---a superior man with whom the girls had often talked---had come in with his head covered with blood, and asked the girls to bandage it. Susan had some slight surgical knowledge, and did what she could for him. Then the man told them that of the entire ship’s company only themselves and seven others were alive, and that of these seven four were so badly wounded that they would probably not recover. Among these was Blessington. Sime and James Dangle were dead.

The slightly injured men threw the dead overboard and cleaned up the traces of the fighting, while the girls ministered to the seriously wounded. Of course, in the three days up till the arrival of the avengers---who had by a strange trick of fate become the rescuers---one man had died. Of the eight-and-twenty who sailed from Antwerp there were therefore left only nine: the two girls and four slightly and three seriously wounded men. None of those able to move understood either engineering or seamanship, so that they had luckily decided to remain at anchor in the hope of some ship picking up their flag of distress.

“There is just one thing I should like to understand,” said Cheyne to Joan, when later on that day a prize crew had been put aboard the L’Escaut and steam was being raised for the return to England, “and that is what happened to you on the night that we burgled Earlswood. You got back to your rooms, then left again with Sime and Blessington?”

“There’s not much to tell about that,” Joan answered. “I was, as you know, standing like a watchman before the door of Earlswood, when I saw Susan and her brother coming up. I rang and knocked and kept them talking as long as possible. Then when they opened the door I slipped away, but I heard your footsteps and realized that you had got out by the back way. I heard you run off down the lane with Dangle after you, then remembering your arrangement about throwing away the tracing, I climbed over the wall, picked it up and went back to my rooms. The first thing I did was to photograph it, then I hid it in my colour box. I had scarcely done so when Sime called. He said you had met with an accident---been caught between two motorcars and knocked down by one of them---and that you were seriously injured. He said you were conscious and had given him my address and were calling for me. I went down to find Blessington driving a car, though I didn’t know then it was Blessington. As soon as we started Sime held a chloroformed cloth over my mouth, and I don’t remember much more till we were on the L’Escaut.”

“But how did Sime find your rooms?”

“Through Susan. Susan told me all about it afterwards. She went out after James and saw me climbing over the wall with the tracing. She followed me to my rooms and immediately telephoned to Sime. When Sime called she was with him, and while I changed my coat Sime let her into the studio and she hid behind an easel until we were gone. She searched till she found the tracing and then simply walked out. The gang had intended to go to Antwerp the following week in any case, but this business upset their plans and they decided to start immediately. Dangle went on and arranged for the L’Escaut to leave some days earlier. The rest of us put up at Ghent till she was ready to sail.” But little further remains to be told. The few bars of gold still left on the Silurian were soon raised and the two ships set sail, reaching Chatham some five days later. All the bullion theoretically belonged to the Crown, but under the special circumstances a generous division was made whereby twenty-five per cent was returned to the finders. As Price refused to accept the whole amount an amicable agreement was come to, whereby Cheyne, Joan, and Price each received almost one-third, or £200,000 apiece. Of the balance of over £20,000, £10,000 was given to Susan Dangle by Joan’s imperative directions. She said that Susan was not a bad girl and had turned up trumps during the trouble on the L’Escaut. £1,000 went to Inspector French---also Joan’s gift, and the remainder was divided among the officers and men of the Admiralty salvage boat.

Thus ends that strange series of events which in the beginning of the story I alluded to as The Cheyne Mystery.

THE END